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Thread: {Tales} The Hakawati Speaks

  1. #21

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of the quick witted caravan master--


    It is not uncommon for travelers to ask caravan masters to join their caravan. In the desert there is great safety in great numbers and the longer the caravan train, the less likely it will be harassed by most small bandit groups. Because of this, caravan masters will almost never refuse a request that increases the size of their train. Even known criminals are often welcomed into the caravan. At the worst, each extra camel or wagon means less of a chance bandits will make off with the caravan master’s camels or wagons.

    Joining a caravan does not automatically entitle one to the protection afforded by the caravan master’s guards or the food the caravan master has brought for his retainers. However, the caravan master is responsible for the maintaining harmony within the caravan and all who wish to travel with the caravan are bound by the caravan master’s decisions.

    It happened once that a merchant of meager means needed to travel from Huxi to Karakhet. He had only one wagon half loaded with goods. Since this was all the wealth he had in the world, he did not wish to risk travelling the desert alone. A caravan was preparing to leave Huxi so he approached the caravan master and asked to join. The master agreed and gave the merchant a place near the back of the caravan.

    One day toward the middle of the journey when the caravan was in the vast wilderness and days from the nearest village the merchant found his small coffer had been emptied the night before. Distressed, he went to the caravan master who grew concerned that someone in the caravan would be so bold as to steal from another caravan member.

    “By Set,” swore the caravan master, “I shall find the thief, restore your property and the honor of this caravan.”

    That evening when the caravan stopped, the caravan master called together all those in the caravan and told everyone what had happened. He bid everyone return when the moon was at its highest and he would then have a way to discover the thief. When everyone returned they found the caravan master had erected a small tent around which stood several of his guards and in front of which was a large campfire.

    “I have in the tent a donkey,” said the Caravan Master. “If a thief pet’s the donkey’s tail it will bray loudly. However it will not do so if more than one person is present. So, each person here will go into the tent alone and pet the donkey’s tail. When it brays, we will know the thief. No one will leave the light of the campfires until the thief is found.”

    The merchant who was the thief’s victim thought this odd but trusted in the caravan master methods. One by one each person in the caravan went into the tent. Even the caravan master and the merchant went in to touch the donkey’s tail. The donkey never once brayed.

    “I am ruined,” lamented the merchant. “Everyone has gone into the tent but the donkey has made no sound.”

    “And it will not,” said the caravan master. “It is the donkey’s tail, not its mouth that will tell us the thief. Does your hand not smell of jasmine?”

    The merchant sniffed his palm and it did indeed smell of jasmine. The caravan master then presented his hand to the merchant and the caravan master’s hand also smelled of jasmine. “I sprinkled perfume on the donkey’s tail,” said the caravan master. “All that remains is to see which member of the caravan has a hand that does not smell of jasmine. They are the one that did not touch the tail for fear of being revealed and are the thief.”

    It took little time to find the thief. As the caravan master predicted, the thief was the only one whose hand did not smell of jasmine. Faced with the evidence, the thief confessed and returned the stolen money to the merchant. The caravan master then cast him from the caravan, essentially a death sentence to any traveling alone in the wastes. From then to his last day, the merchant had nothing but words of praise for the caravan master’s wisdom.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  2. #22

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of how an ostrich thief kept his head--

    Many years ago a man from the tribe of Haroof, one of the vassal tribes of Ashem, found himself destitute. His family and tribe helped as much as they could but the Haroof have always been the lowest of desert wanderers and without much wealth so the man found himself slowly starving. After much consideration he determined that he should embark on a career as a thief rather than continue to burden his tribe and his family. This is not something he decided lightly for he was at heart an honest man. However, hunger gnawing at the guts like a rabid hyena often leads otherwise honest men into desperation.

    He determined that he should steal only from the very wealthy. He reasoned that what little he might steal from them would go mostly unnoticed and they could do without it since they were so wealthy to begin with. Stealing a sheep from a flock of a three hundred might seem to have less impact than stealing from a flock of three. However, both acts are still theft and our law considers both thefts equal.

    It happened that the Haroof and the Ashem were encamped at the Al Sirra oasis when this man decided to become a thief. It also happened that the Pasha was at the oases and being the richest of all Ashem, the man decided to steal something from the Pasha. He wandered the encampments until he found in a small pen near the Pasha’s pavilions, an ostrich. He untied the bird and led it away, intending to sell it elsewhere.

    The next morning the Pasha’s eldest daughter went to the ostrich pen and found it gone. This distressed her greatly for the bird was a gift to her from her father. He presented it to her not a week before when she completed the rites to become Al-Zahar. Thinking the ostrich had slipped its tether, the Shining Star of Derketo went about the oasis looking for the bird. Soon, a hundred or more people were looking. Most of the men, of course, were hoping to receive the sensual attentions of the Al-Zahar as a reward if they found the ostrich. When it could not be found, the only conclusion was that it had been stolen so the Al-Zahar went weeping to her father. And what father’s heart does not break upon seeing tears on his daughter’s face then harden with vengeance against those who would bring her to tears?



    The Pasha immediately sent out his fastest messengers. Should any person seek to sell or buy any ostrich, they were to be immediately seized and brought before him. Word spread quickly. Much quicker than it took for the thief to reach the next oasis where he hoped to sell the ostrich. He hid the bird in a cave and went into the oasis to inquire if anyone might want to buy such an exotic animal. The people upon hearing this immediately seized the man and turned him over to a group of Ashem raiders who were returning to the Pasha’s camp.

    When he was brought before the Pasha, the man admitted he stole the ostrich but claimed he had already sold it. Without hesitation, the Pasha ordered the man’s head removed. The Pasha’s guards seized the thief and started dragging him out of the tent.

    The Pasha’s daughter laid a hand on her father’s arm. “Wait,” she called to the guards then looked to her father with pleading, compassionate eyes. “This man is Al-Haroof, one of the subject tribes that pays tribute to Ashem. Please consider your judgment. I beg that you give him time to make amends.”

    The Pasha inhaled deeply from a hooka. The apple tobacco smoke wreathed his head and he spoke once the smoke had dissipated. “Because the Al-Zahar has asked for the hand of mercy and she is the most revered of all Derketo’s children among the wandering tribes, this is my judgement on you. The ostrich was a gift to the Al-Zahar and it was traded for two of my finest camels. You will return to me two camels. But as this was a theft from a woman, you shall return three times as many. And as it was a theft against the Al-Zahar, that number shall be seven fold again higher for a total of…” the pasha looked to one of his viziers.

    “Forty-two camels,” said the vizier.

    “You have seven days,” continued the Pasha. “If my camel pens are not forty-two camels heavier by then, you will be lighter one head.”

    The thief thanked the Pasha for his consideration and the Al-Zahar for her compassion and hurried from the Pasha’s tent. Poor as he was, he knew he could not afford even a camel hair blanket. Never mind forty two camels. Word spreads quickly among the tibes. The people of Haroof soon heard of his predicament and shook their heads. They knew the man had turned to thievery out of desperation but they saw no way to help him. When the week was up, the man would surely lose his head.

    But the man had an idea. He took forty two lengths of rope and went to the tents of forty two Haroof camel herders, one of which was his cousin who had the largest herd of all Haroof. He set the ropes in front of their tents and called out, “Oh Haroof, forgive me! Please tie a camel to this rope or the Pasha will have my head!”

    The man went to fetch the ostrich and returned to see the generosity of his friends and neighbors. To his great joy, he found a camel tied outside of each tent where he had placed a rope. He gathered the camels, tying them in line until he came to the tent of his cousin. There, he found not a camel but a goat. The man took the camels, goat and ostrich to the Pasha.

    When the Pasha saw the camels, goat and ostrich, he asked the man to explain.

    “Great Pasha,” said the man, “Zuagir raiders took all that I owned and left me with only the clothes on my back. The generosity of my tribe was all that kept me from starving but we Haroof are not as wealthy as the Ahshem and I began to grow so hungry that I thought the only way I might survive and not be a burden to my tribe was by thievery. Though I do not think I am worthy of such a thing, my tribe in their generosity managed to gather the camels you desired as restitution. I pray only that the Pasha accept the goat as the forty second camel and allow me to keep my head.”

    The Pasha thought for a moment then said, “That your tribe, poor as they are, would give you these camels shows me you are respected by your tribesmen. The fact that you would then bring all these camels and the ostrich back to me shows me that though you are a poor man, you are an honest man. However, you were to bring forty two camels, not forty one camels and a goat. I will not accept these camels and this goat as compensation for the theft.”

    The man, certain he was about to lose his head, looked up to the pasha.

    “Take the ostrich to the Al-Zahar,” the Pasha ordered his guards. “Then load these camels with grain and salt and sugar for this man to take back with him. His debt has been paid.”

    “And the goat,” asked one of the guards.

    “Put a sack of camel shiit on its back.”

    Once back among his tribe, the man returned the camels to their owners. Though he asked for nothing in return, each camel owner gave the man a portion of the goods packed on their camel. In all it was enough for the man to rebuild his life and never again resort to thievery. Everyone was pleased beyond measure at the Pasha’s wisdom. Well, except for the man’s cousin who received only a sack of camel shiit as payment for his lack of generosity.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  3. #23

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of how Owl opened the Djinni Sultan's eyes--


    One day the Sultan of all Djiin rested in the baths of his Cloud Palace. Most of the day had been spent holding court and deciding matters great and small for his djiin subjects and the lesser desert demons that swear loyalty to him. With the day’s business at an end, the sultan retired to the warm, perfumed waters of the bath house to relax.

    Preferring to be alone, he dismissed all of the attendants, saying, “I have seen enough faces and heard enough voices at court. Under pain of death do not return or let anyone in the baths until I command it.” The sultan sat and relaxed in the heated water. At the edge of the large pool he stretched his arms along the lip of the pool and rested his back. The water, heated by a handful of Hell’s fire, enveloped him, drawing from his body all the day’s weariness and tensions. He had nearly fallen asleep in the steamy water’s embrace when he felt the ripples of someone else slipping into the bath pool.

    “I commanded that I be left alone,” said the sultan. “If you value your head, leave now and I will forgive the intrusion.”

    “Without a head, how will my lips taste yours, husband?”

    The sultan lifted his head and opened his eyes. Ashetaana waded towards him. Dressed as usual only in henna, the steam rising from the water caused the ink to drain off her curved body like slow melting tattoos. The daughter of a sun demon and a succubus, few had the will to resist the Sultana. Mortals desired her unmatched beauty. Infernals sought her deviant lusts. Celestials craved the forbidden passions she promised. None could resist for long the brush of her body against theirs, the purr of her voice in their ear or the gaze of her golden eyes.

    “I gave direction not to be disturbed,” sighed the Sultan again laying his head back and closing his eyes. “It seems the bath attendants will be losing their heads thanks to you.”

    “Mmm, you know exactly how to excite me, husband.” Ashetaana slid onto her husband’s lap and wrapped her long legs about his waist. Her fingertips scratched at the back of his neck. “You will let me watch, yes.”

    The sultan lifted his head. His dark eyes met the shimmering gold of hers. “If you had not enticed them to let you in, I’d not need to execute them for disobeying me.” So easy, he knew, to become lost in her eyes, blinded by their brilliance.

    Ashetanna shrugged her slender shoulders. “Then do not have attendants who are so easily mesmerized.” Ashetaana drew idle circles on the sultan’s broad chest with her fingernail. The henna dripping from her body floated in the water between them like ribbons of blood. She knew the effect she had on men and women, that she could get whatever she wanted with just a look that held in it the unspoken promise of illicit pleasures.

    The sultan saw in her teasing finger and seductive eyes the prelude to a desire. She wanted something and true to her nature she went about getting it with her body. Normally the Sultan would indulge his deviant pleasures, taking from her what he wished before granting her wish in return. But the day had worn him down and he found himself asking, “What is it you want this time, Ashetaana?”

    A brief shadow of disappointment passed over her face. No seduction. No thrill of taking and being taken by her husband. He had ended the game before it even started. “Just a palace.”

    “A palace? You already have this cloud palace, the Palace of Eternal Moonlight and the Palace of the Southern Wind. What more could you want?”

    “A palace made of feathers.”

    “Why?”

    “Because there is no other like it in all the worlds of men or immortals. And because as your Sultana, I deserve it.”

    “You deserve a whip for such conceited greed.”

    “Again you tease me, husband. If you wish, beat me until I bleed black and lay quivering before you, helpless. Just build me a Palace of Feathers.”

    “You are hardly helpless, woman. But very well, I will summon the kings of the birds and ask them to require their subjects give over feathers for your palace.”

    The next day the Sultan summoned the Falcon of the Eastern Dawn and the Hawk of the Western Sunset to his palace. The kings of the birds agreed to the Sultan’s request only because the Sultana was present and they could not resist the promise of unmatched ecstasy they saw within Ashetaana’s golden eyes. So off they flew. Falcon gathered the birds of the east and Hawk gathered the birds of the west. All of the birds save one came to give up their feathers.

    “Where is Owl,” demanded Ashetaana. “I cannot have a palace of feathers without Owl feathers!”

    “Owl is a stubborn old bird,” said Hawk. “When we went to him he refused to give up his feathers for you.”

    “Owl is a night bird,” explained Falcon, “He is beyond our ability to compel him into action and he refuses to come.”

    “If he is a night bird, I will send the Moon to talk to him,” said the Sultan. “She will convince him.”

    But even Moon, queen of the night, could not convince Owl to part with his feathers. She stood embarrassed before the Sultan and Sultana. “He told me I was foolish for giving you some of my light to build the Palace of Eternal Moonlight. He said that he would not be part of any such foolishness in building a Palace of Feathers.”

    The Sultana raged. Even in anger, or perhaps because of it, she was a thing of exquisite and dangerous sensuality. The Sultan tried to calm her, saying that Falcon and Hawk had brought more than enough birds and a palace could be built without Owl’s feathers. But this would not satisfy Ashetaana. She wanted a palace made of feathers from all the birds in the world.

    In the midst of the Sultana’s raging, a voice rose that almost never spoke in the Sultan’s court. It was such a rare thing that it even caused Ashetaana to pause. “Let me ask Owl,” said Dog.

    After a moment of silence, laughter began rolling through the court at such an absurd request by such a lowly animal. Ashetaana kicked Dog. “Stupid, useless beast! What makes you think you might convince Owl when others better than you have not!”

    Dog cowered in the corner, averting his sad eyes from the Sultana and all the others mocking him with their laughter. “I live only to serve, Sultana,” said Dog.

    The Sultan dismissed the dog. “Go,” he said. “Your advice is useless to us anyway. Talk to Owl if you feel you must. Your betters will discuss how best to convince Owl to give up his feathers.” Shamed, Dog hurried from the Palace with his tail tucked between his legs.

    The next day Dog returned to the palace with Owl perched upon his back. The entire court watched, astonished, as Dog approached the Sultan and introduced Owl to the court.

    “I see you have finally come to offer up your feathers,” said the Sultan. “What has this wretched Dog said that Falcon, Hawk and Moon did not?”

    “I have not come to offer my feathers,” replied Owl. “I have come to honor Dog. He convinced me to come because his thoughts were not for his own glory but in service to the Sultan and Sultana. Dog asked humbly for me to consider the Sultan’s wishes. He did not demand of me my feathers as others have done. So, I am here to be convinced that this Palace of Feathers is not a waste of effort and a thing so frivolous as to be beneath the Sultan’s austere personage.”

    “Is not a Palace of Feathers a grand enough goal,” asked the Sultan.

    “Or the honor that will be yours for helping build such a thing for me?” Ashetaana smiled and Owl saw hearts and wills melt before the promise of imagined delights in her smile.

    Owl spread his wings to display the magnificent plumage that carried him hunting silently through the night. “A palace of feathers is no great thing. We birds live among palaces of feathers. We pluck them from our own bodies to make our nests and to keep our children warm. Would you have our children shake from the cold for the sake of building your palace? Would you pluck out your own hair to build nests for our young?”

    Ashetaana snorted derisively.

    “The Sultana has her heart and mind set on a Palace of Feathers,” said the Sultan. “The palace would not be complete without your feathers, friend Owl. What do you propose we do to make the Sultana happy?”

    Owl saw avarice in the Sultana’s golden eyes. He recognized, too, the unnatural devotion given to her by all of the men and women in the Sultan’s court. Their need to please Ashetaana subjugated their judgment, making of them slaves hoping for the briefest glance from her eyes or her soft lips whispering in their ear. Owl knew he would not make it out of the Cloud Palace alive without convincing the Sultan to let him go.

    “As Sultan, you stand on your honor do you not?” asked Owl.

    The Sultan nodded his regal head once. “I do. A man’s honor is his life.”

    “As I think the feather palace a foolish idea and others do not, I propose you ask me three questions. If I cannot wisely answer them to your satisfaction, I shall without delay pluck out all of my feathers. However, should you see the wisdom in my answers, then never a feather of mine or my kind will you ever have.”

    “As honor is life,” pledged the Sultan, “I will judge your answers with the weight of life.”

    Ashetaana leaned close to her husband. Her hand rested on his thigh and her bare breast brushed his arm. Without shame she nuzzled his neck like a loving cat and purred in his ear.

    The Sultan nodded and repeated the question whispered to him. “Which is the greatest number, the living or the dead?”

    Owl’s large eyes closed in thought and did not open forl many long moments . Once he formulated his answer he said to the Sultan, “Only the living may die and all that lives must one day die. It is often said of the dead that they are in eternal slumber. Those who sleep appear dead though they are not. Those without a joy in their life can be considered dead. Those in a home made unhappy by the harpish words of ungrateful women might as well be dead. Given all this, there must be more dead than living.”

    Ashetaana’s hand slid higher up the Sultan’s muscled thigh. Her whisper grew breathy and needful.

    Again the Sultan repeated the whispered question. “Which is longer, day or night?”

    Owl thought for a moment then said, “At her most beautiful, Moon shines with a light near as bright as her brother and husband, the Sun. Being a dutiful wife she thus extends the glory of her husband into the night. So in this regard there will always be more day than night.”

    Her hand unable to slip any further, Ashetaana grasped the Sultan, heedless of those watching. A creature who with her own lusts sought to manipulate others and bend them to her will, Ashetanna purred with urgent animal desire the last unanswerable question into her husband’s ear.

    The Sultan, enraptured by his wife’s boundless need, asked as if half awake. “Are there more men or women?”

    Owl answered without hesitation. “Men who seek the counsel of women or bend to their slightest whim are in action, women. Therefore, there are more women than men.”

    Ashetaana caught the sultan’s earlobe in her teeth and growled, “Take his feathers.”

    The Sultan grabbed Ashetaana by the hair and tossed her to the floor at his feet. “No,” commanded the Sultan. “Owl has proven his wisdom. His answers bring light to my blinded eyes. I am finished indulging you, woman. You are here to serve me, not be served. Even if it takes a century, you will learn your place. There will be no more palaces. Owl and all the birds may depart in peace.”

    “No,” yelled Ashetaana. “I demand my Palace of Feathers!”

    The Sultan silenced his wife with a kick more harsh than she had ever given Dog. But unlike Dog, Ashetaana could not bear the humiliation of learning her place beneath the foot of her better and she wailed in despair. And so it is that women, mortal or not, must often be reminded of their place.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  4. #24

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of The Well of Grief—
    (Part 1 of 4)

    Beyond the memory of all alive and most dead, before the walls of Kuthchemes had fallen into ruin and the unnamed god of that city descended into slumber, Kuthchemes was a city of unparalleled wealth. It was a green island in the endless desert. A place of clear waters and flowering gardens A place of marbled palaces and obsidian towers. A place of ancient magic and the home of a living god.

    But as are all places of great fortune, Kuthchemes was also a place of great misfortune. For every prince, a thousand beggars and for every laugh a thousand sobs. As it has always been, misfortunes are easier found than fortunes and often of a man’s own making.

    In this city of kings lived a prince who was his father’s only son. When his father died, the prince inherited all the wealth of his father. Not having gained the wealth on his own, and having lived in ease his entire life, the prince found it easy to squander away his riches as if they were limitless. Not three years passed and he found himself without the palace, slaves or jewels his father had left behind. Having no money, his friends deserted him, the nobles shunned him and his courtesans found new patrons. Driven by hunger and reduced to no more than a common beggar, the prince would sit by the city walls, hoping to hire himself out as labor.

    One day a sheik happened by. “You,” said the sheik to the Prince. “You look as though hunger compels you to work.”

    The Prince looked up from where he sat in the dust. The sheik’s white robes glowed in the midday sun and sunlight glimmered long the robe’s golden trim. The prince shielded his eyes. He saw the deep lines of age in the sheik’s face and a beard dyed black with ox blood to hide the grey. “Hunger compels men to many things, uncle” said the Prince, using ‘uncle’ as a term of respect for the older man.

    “Then come with me and you shall not again feel hunger or your back breaking beneath common labor.”

    The sheik held out his hand to the prince but the young man hesitated and said in a cautious but respectful tone, “Djiin and efreet walk Kuthchemes in the guise of men. How am I to know you are not a demon and in agreeing to your offer, I consign my life over to you as a slave?”

    “I am a man of flesh and blood,” assured the sheik. “May Set’s wrathful gaze fall upon me if I lie. You will be free to leave my service whenever you desire along with my wishes of good fortune.”

    “What would you have of me,” asked the Prince, “and why me and not any of the other dirty men that sit here hoping for work?”

    “You have the look of nobility about you,” explained the sheik, “and that is what we require. I am one of thirteen sheiks that live in the Wailing Palace. We are all aging and require someone to help us.”

    The prince, like everyone in Kuchthemes, knew of the Wailing Palace but no one had ever been inside. Men making deliveries always left them in the front gardens by day and by the next morning the items were gone.

    Though the gardens remained green and flowering all months of the year, no one was ever seen to tend them. Forlorn cries from the palace often drifted on the wind. Such was their anguish that those passing close by the palace would be inexplicably seized with regret, mourning for the loss of something they could never explain. Rumors fueled by fear told of a powerful lich sorcerer living in the palace who fed upon the bound souls of those foolish enough to sneak into his home.

    Until now, the Prince had never known anyone to leave the Wailing Palace. He took the sheik’s hand, feeling the warmth of life in it. This sheik was certainly no Lich. “Very well,” said the Prince. “What would you have of me?”

    “Come to the palace and I will tell you all you need to know.” The aging sheik led the prince toward the Wailing Palace. They passed beneath the high minarets of a temple to the slumbering god and through the many souks of the city. Along the way the aging sheik stopped now and then to purchase clothes for the Prince. They were not the clothes of royalty but they were well made linens and far from the burlap rags the Prince currently wore. He bought, too, new sandals for the prince and after a stop at the baths, the Prince in his new clothes carried himself with the self respect of a man rather than the stooped shoulders of a street beggar.

    The sheik did not speak again until he and the Prince had passed the gate of the Wailing Palace and it closed behind them. When the gate closed, the sheik’s bright white robes and black beard faded to grey. The lines of his face deepened and old age pressed down on the man.

    The sheik started shuffling toward the palace entrance. “We are thirteen sheiks, bound by sorrow to this palace.” The sounds of the city beyond the palace walls grew quiet as if someone had stuffed beeswax into the Prince’s ears but he heard the sheik perfectly. “So debilitating is our grief that we sometimes need another to see that our well being is looked after. That is why we require someone of noble blood that has suffered loss. Only they might have the compassion needed.” The sheik stopped at the palace doors. “You have suffered, have you not?”

    “I have, uncle,” said the Prince. “I have lost all my father left me and in doing so, found that those I counted as fast companions were friends of my money not friends of mine.”

    The sheik nodded and laid a hand on the palace doors. The mahogany doors, a foot thick and trimmed in silver, opened effortlessly to the sheik’s feeble hand. The sheik led the Prince though vaulted rooms of polished marble, each more magnificent than the last. The gurgling of fountains and calls of peacocks followed them through the palace. Glass mirrors, like liquid silver, extended rooms into infinity.

    At last they came to a large room in which sat twelve aged, black clad sheiks around a circular table. Each sheik wailed and moaned with such wrenching remorse that the Prince could not help but pity them in their grief. An archway on the opposite wall led down a hall. To either side of the arch was a door, one of iron and the other of unpolished brass. Heavy locks and chains barred the doors and the cobwebs on them lay so thick as to seem more like blankets than webs.

    “This is the well of grief,” said the sheik. “More often than not you will find us here.” The sheik’s pace quickened as they passed through the room and down the arched hall to a series of small rooms decorated in fine silk. “These are your apartments. You will be given a sum of money. You will use this money to see to our needs and to your own modest needs. You shall want for nothing but you shall not live as a prince for the money must last until we thirteen are dead.”

    The prince nodded. “I understand, uncle. But what is the cause of such sorrows?”

    The old sheik’s voice cracked and a tear welled at the corner of his eye. “Do not ask such a thing ever again, young prince. And never attempt to open the barred doors in the well of grief. These are the only two rules we place upon you.” With that, the sheik turned and walked off to join the others.

    The Prince soon settled in. The sheiks spent most of their time lamenting in the well of grief so he was free to roam about when he was not tending to the sheiks or the business of the palace. Though the rooms were spacious, the Prince sometimes felt as if the walls were collapsing in. From the corner of his eye the walls lay at impossible angles to the floor but whenever he turned to look, nothing was amiss. It was the same with the shadows. Things moved at the edge of vision but upon looking, nothing was there.

    Even when not in the well of grief, the sheiks shuffled through the palace like forlorn ghosts not knowing or caring where they drifted. Never did the prince see one smile or hear one laugh. When they spoke, it was never for very long. Something always reminded them of their anguish. Moaning, they would then return to the well of grief.

    It was not long before the first of the Sheik’s died. The Prince prepared the body, washing it and dressing it in the burial linens then buried the man without help from the others. He said the prayers for the dead by himself since none of the other sheiks came to the grave. They remained in the well of grief. The first sheik’s death only reminded them of the deeper loss they all shared but of which they never spoke.

    And so it was for seven more years until the only sheik that remained was the grey bearded sheik who brought the prince to the Palace. When it became certain the old sheik was about to die, he summoned the prince to his side.

    “You have served well and faithfully,” he said to the prince. “Because of you, my ending years and those of all the others were made less tedious. As you have been careful not to spend all the money we gave you for our upkeep and thought more for our comfort than yours, you may have whatever is left of the money.”

    The prince bowed his head, humbled. What remained would allow the prince to live a modest life for the rest of his days. “You are too kind, uncle. I did not expect such a boon for my service.”

    The sheik held up a hand. “Let me finish. I do not have much time. We decided that you should also have this if you were at our side when the last of us found relief in death.” The old sheik reached into his grey robes with a trembling, arthritic hand and held out a brass key. “This is the key to the brass door in the well of grief. As you have been like a son to us, this palace and all that you find behind the brass door is yours. But never should you open the iron door.” The old sheik’s breaths slowed and a peace settled over his craggy, wrinkled face.

    “Uncle…,” began the prince, He wanted to ask what could cause a man such sorrow in life that death would be a welcomed thing. But he remembered his promise all those years ago and let the old sheik die with a relieved sigh passing his lips.

    As he had done twelve times before, the prince prepared the body and buried the last sheik. Once all the prayers for the dead had been sung, he went to the brass door. The locks opened easily and the chains fell away as the mooring lines of a ship leaving the docks.

    Upon opening the door, the Prince beheld treasures heaped in piles as tall as a man. Here, a pile of the finest perfume oils and ambergris. There, a pile of ivory. Piles of gold, of silver and of jewels that refracted the light into a thousand rainbows. He knew then that the sheiks could have lived much more lavishly yet they chose not to. For seven years he lived humbly as their servant. A lesson, he realized, that wealth is a reward for work and duty rather than the birthright of an inheritance.

    For the rest of his days he could live as a king and want for nothing. Yet, when he closed the brass door, his eyes fell on the iron door and wondered what unknown treasures waited there.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  5. #25

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of The Well of Grief—
    (Part 2 of 4)

    The mystery of the iron door tormented the Prince. For the past seven years he gave the doors little attention, thinking perhaps they locked away the source of the sheiks’ sorrow. But now knowing what treasures lay behind the brass door all this time, his mind raced at what lay locked behind the iron door. For the next month he spent most of his waking hours in the well of grief, contemplating the iron door, imagining all the things that it might lock away. Finally, he could no longer withstand the torment of not knowing, of wondering if for the remainder of his life he might have missed even greater riches.

    He bought from a stone mason a large maul and several chisels, intending to use them to sunder the door’s chains and locks in the same way they split granite. But the chisels, forged from a demon’s iron bones, bent beneath the hammering and the maul shattered like glass. Frustrated, the Prince yanked on the chains with his bare hands and the chains crumbled to dust. So too did the locks and the steel bars as thick as a man’s arm. He pushed open the door and beyond was a hall that extended into darkness.

    With an oil lamp in hand, the Prince started down the hall. He walked until the light from the open door became only a pinpoint behind him then he sat down to rest. When he set the lamp on the floor he saw that the flame lifted at a slight angle from the lamp. It was as if the lamp was on an uneven surface even though the floor was smooth. He took from one of his pockets a pearl and set it on the floor. It began rolling back toward the pinpoint of light that was the open door and the prince realized he had been walking up the entire time. But for as long as he had walked he guessed he would have been far outside the city walls and far above the highest tower in Kuthchemes by now. Yet he was still in this hallway.

    Determined to see what was at the end of this impossible hall, he continued on. Eventually the light of the open door could no longer be seen but he continued on. Then the oil from his lamp went dry and he was left in blackness but he continued on. Several hours later he saw a point of light ahead and knew he was coming to the end so he quickened his pace.

    “I have climbed so far and so long,” he thought. “I must have climbed past the sky. Maybe even past the third crystal sphere of the heavens!” When he reached the end of the hall, he found himself standing on a beach. Sunlight sparkling on the blue water dazzled his eyes and the call of far off sea birds rode on the ocean breeze.

    Sweating from his journey, the Prince decided to take a quick swim to cool off. Seeing no others around, he removed his fine robes, draped them over the trunk of a crooked, leaning palm tree and jumped, naked, into the water. He swam about, never going more than a stone’s throw from shore, enjoying the sun and the water and the sense of peace the place filled him with.

    Invigorated, he started swimming back to shore when a great weigh fell upon him from the sky and plunged him underwater. His chest constricted, squeezed by some inescapable grip and as quickly as he was shoved beneath the waves, he found himself above them in the claws of a giant osprey.

    Wings beating the air, water sloughed from the feathers as the great beast climbed higher. The prince struggled, wriggling like some helpless fish in the bird’s black talons. The prince beat on the osprey’s claw with his fist. “Damnable beast,” he yelled. “I am no fish!”

    The osprey ignored the prince’s defiant fists, hardly noticing them at all. “That is plain,” said the osprey. “You were far too easy a catch”

    The prince stopped pummeling the claw, stunned that the beast could speak. Fear and anger overcame his surprise and he again started struggling. “You’ll not eat me,” proclaimed the prince again beating on the claw.

    The osprey laughed, a shrill and piercing sound that hurt the ears. “You flatter yourself! The shark and the sea lion are more worthy catches! Even the lazy sea turtle is more of a challenge than sons of men splashing about in the sea. Besides, the flesh of men is as sour as their souls. Now be quiet, we have a long way to go.”

    “Put me down,” demanded the prince.

    “Very well.” The osprey let go of the prince. The beast hovered in the air, watching the prince tumble toward the sea a thousand feet below. The prince’s screams became lost in the infinite sky. The osprey watched, judging the man’s fall with the eyes of a raptor. Down the prince fell, faster and faster and just at the moment he expected death on the water, the Osprey dove down and plucked the prince from the air.

    “Just because your meat is sour does not mean I will not eat you anyway,” admonished the bird. “Now be still and silent or by the Bright Queen I’ll dash you against the rocks and feast on your insides like the gulls do crabs!”

    The prince did as the osprey demanded, the alternative being death. They flew into the clouds and rode the quickening winds for a day and a night. At dawn of the next day, the osprey descended toward an island and set the Prince down on the beach.

    “What now,” asked the prince.

    “This is as far as I take you, son of man,” said the Osprey. “Others will carry you the rest of the way.”

    “Others? Who? When? Where to? Are you to leave me naked and hungry on this beach?”

    “Men talk too much,” said the bird which leaped into the air and soon disappeared into the light of the morning sun.

    The prince found the island full of trees pregnant with figs and dates and all manner of sweet citrus. Even fruits he had never seen before but which to him tasted like the pomegranate and one whose meat was crunchy as an apple but juicy and savory as a peach.

    Many brightly colored small lizards, no longer than a man’s hand, scurried about the island hunting insects. Often they would look upon the prince, curious about the strange creature they had never before seen then dart back into the leaves and underbrush.

    Toward midday the prince spotted a red sail in the distance making for the island. “These must be the others the bird spoke of,” thought the prince. “The ones that will carry me the rest of the way. But to where?” The prince’s mind raced. What if the osprey had left him here only to be taken into slavery, for in a strange land what other fate might a naked man have other than to be hurled into bondage? What if these people on the ship were not people at all? What if they were Shekelesh, the mythic pirate ghouleh.

    Overcome with trepidation, the Prince hid himself among the trees. When the ship arrived, it anchored just off the beach and the Prince saw that it was not crewed by Shekelesh, but by women. A small gig brought a shore party of a dozen women to the beach, their skins tanned by the ocean sun to the same rich brown as the ship’s teak decks.

    “Man! Where are you,” called the women but the Prince did not answer. “We know the King Fisher has brought you here. Come out so we may take you from this place.”

    The women began searching the beach and the trees. One found a set of tracks in the sand and pointed in the Prince’s direction. Knowing he would soon be found, he called out from the tree, “I am here! But I have no clothes.”

    The women giggled. “Then come out so we might have a look at you!” exhorted a dark eyed woman the prince took to be the captain. “If we are to deliver a package, we should at least see how large it is.” The rest of the shore party snickered. “Or how small,” added the captain which caused the rest of the women to erupt into laughter.

    “If you have any bit of decency, throw me something to cover myself and I will come out.”

    “A modest one,” mused the captain so only her crew could hear. “Must be a small package.” The captain motioned for one of her crew to fetch from the gig something for the Prince to wear. The crewwoman took a burlap sack from the gig, walked over to the tree and tossed it up to the Prince.

    The prince wrapped it about his waist and climbed from the tree. “How low,” he thought. “back in the burlap sack of a beggar.”

    The women approached, encircling him and the captain stepped forward. “So this is the honored guest,” she said casting a critical eye over the Prince. “A groom in need of grooming.”

    “Did the King Fisher bring the right man,” asked one of the crew.

    “The King Fisher is never wrong,” said the captain again appraising the Prince. “If he brought this man here, the man must be the one.”

    The women shouted hurrahs and huzzahs and hoisted the Prince onto their shoulders. They carried him to the gig and rowed back to their ship. No sooner were they all aboard than the anchor raised and the ship’s red lanteen sail grew fat with wind pushing the ship across the sea.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  6. #26

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of The Well of Grief—
    (Part 3 of 4)

    The prince was given his own small cabin and treated as an honored guest with the exception that he was given no more than the burlap to wear. When he asked for something else to wear, the captain scoffed, saying there was nothing else and that she would not make any of her crew give up their clothes for him. When he complained the burlap itched, she bid him take off the burlap if it was so uncomfortable. But modesty overcame discomfort and the Prince endured until the lookout spotted land on the horizon a week later.

    The night before they were to land, the captain brought the Prince a set of clothes more fine than any he had ever seen. Of the purest white with gold trim, they reminded him of the robes the old sheik wore when they first met. A pang of guilt twisted the Prince’s heart. Had he honored the old sheik’s last request, he would never have opened the iron door and found himself lost in a world he did not know.

    “Why did you not give me these before,” asked the Prince.

    The captain shrugged. “We were told not to give you these until the night before landfall, no matter how uncomfortable your suffering or humiliation. We were instructed to carry you as we found you so I should not have even allowed you the burlap sack.”

    “Thank you, Captain, for your consideration.”

    “It was not for you,” she said. “I did not need the crew seeing man parts flopping about or standing firm as the bowsprit from the front of the ship.” It seemed to the Prince that the captain wanted to say something more but she dismissed the thought and whatever images were in her mind with a shake of her head. “Just be sure you are dressed properly in the morning. If we have to dress you it will not be pleasant.” With that the captain left and the Prince did not see her again until morning.

    When the Prince came on deck the next morning, he saw the shore and the land beyond lined with soldiers in perfect company formations. They stretched into the distance in such numbers that only the gods might know how many there were. The sunlight danced along their armor and spears looking like a field of sparkling gold wheat covering the land.

    Once ashore he was taken to mare with such fine black fur that the light striking her twisted into deep blues and violets. Once the prince was in the saddle, the Captain and her crew started back to the ship.

    “What am I to do,” asked the Prince.

    “Wait,” said the Captain.

    From horseback he watched the Captain return to her ship, the sail unfurl and the ship disappear towards the horizon. All around him stood motionless soldiers in their perfect formations. Each soldier wore the same steel mask of a grimacing mustached face which stared from beneath their pointed brass helms. So still were the soldiers that the Prince thought them all to be statues until a horn sounded and they moved in wordless unison to open a path through their ranks.

    A half dozen horsemen trotted down the open path. The banners and pinions flapping from the ends of their raised lances left no doubt that the horseman riding at their head was a man of great importance. Like the infantry, the cavalrymen wore the same scaled armor and steel masks. The leader, though, wore a golden mask and ringing his helmet, a crown. So fine were the scales on the King’s armor that they refracted the sunlight to the point the armor seemed made of liquid rainbows.

    The king rode up to the prince on a mare as white as the Princes’s was black and offered him a polite nod by way of greeting. “Welcome, stranger,” said the king. His voice reverberated through the mask and though deepened by the gold mask, the Prince took the king’s voice to be that of a young man.. “You are the man from beyond the iron door?”

    The Prince nodded in return. “I am. I find myself having arrived on these unfamiliar shores by the strangest means. By giant bird and a ship of women.”

    “The King Fisher and Red Loreleis,” affirmed the King. “They bring all strangers to our shore.”

    “All? There cannot be many than come though the iron door.”

    “There are more paths to the Bright Lands than just your iron door. The King Fisher guards them all and the Loreleis ferry the worthy here.” From behind the golden mask, the King’s eyes stared appraisingly at the Prince. “The King Fisher did not eat you and the Loreleis did not throw you to the sharks so they must have judged you worthy. But come, a feast of welcome awaits you and we waste idle time here.”

    Together they rode through the ranks of soldiers and then through vast fields of wheat from which rose wind mills with vanes of multicolored fabric to catch the wind. Past the fields they rode over hills of the finest green pasturage where cattle grazed lazily beside meandering streams. They rode until midday when they came to a citadel whose highest towers lay shrouded in cloud.

    As outside the citadel, all the soldiers within wore the same steel mask. Women going about their business in the wide halls of the citadel’s palace stopped to look at the Prince as in wonder that he was not wearing a mask.

    Pillows and low tables lined the walls of the feasting hall, each ringed with masked soldiers in the throes of merriment. Light from the roof’s colored glass fell in waterfalls of blues and reds and greens onto female dancers in the center of the room. The king led the Prince towards a table sitting up on a dais at the far end of the room. When the men sat, serving girls hurried from their hiding places to tend the King and the Prince. They brought pitchers of wine and plates of roasted meats. The Prince felt their eyes upon him, heard their nervous little chittering as they stepped away from the table.

    Once the food and wine had been placed before them, the King raised his hand. Silence settled on the hall. The band stopped. The dancers stopped. Laughter and conversations stopped. “We have an honored guest,” said the king, his voice filling the hall. “From beyond the Iron Door!”

    At this, all those gathered cheered, lifted their wine chalices and raised such a joyous noise that the Prince thought it might shake the sun from the sky. The King again raised his hand and the cheering slowly died off. “Now is the time when we may set aside our masks and show our true selves.”

    The king pulled off his helm and mask. Hair like liquid night fell about the King’s shoulders and the Prince realized the King’s voice, distorted by the mask, was not that of a young man but of a young woman. Throughout the hall, masks fell away to reveal women’s faces.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  7. #27

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of The Well of Grief—
    (Part 4 of 4)


    The young Queen lounged on a pillow beside the Prince. The tiny, fish-like scales of her armor, glimmered in the light. The Prince saw for the first time the womanly curves as the fine cloth-like armor settled like a blanket over her lounging form. The Queen took up a chalice of wine. She saw the confusion in the Prince’s eyes and said to him, “The Bright Land is populated only by women. It has always been so and will be until the day he sun burns away. Even the animals are all female.”

    The Prince looked over the feasting hall at all the lovely young faces then back to the Queen who was made even more beautiful by the regal aire with which she carried herself. “Everyone is so young.”

    The queen took a swallow of wine which stained her lips a dark, inviting red. “Age does not touch anyone in the Bright Land. You might live here a hundred years and not age a day.”

    “You are immortal? A celestial?”

    The queen laughed, a sound like the tinkling of crystal. “No, we are nothing so grand as a celestial. Death may find us here. We are simply ageless. And I see by your eyes you approve.”

    “Forgive me,” he said, embarrassed that he had been caught admiring the queen. He forced himself to look away but everywhere his eyes went there was another woman, beautiful and young. Suddenly uncomfortable, he tried to change the subject. “If there are no men…,” he started to say but then realized in his fumbling to change the subject he only further embarrassed himself with a thought better left unvoiced.

    “There are only two males in all the Bright Lands. The King Fisher and the Bright King.”

    The Prince looked around. “Where is the King?”

    The Queen set down her chalice of wine and rested her soft palm on the Prince’s cheek to turn his face back to hers.“The King Fisher and the Red Loreleis bring us the Bright King. Those the King Fisher does not eat or the Loreleis do not give to the sea find themselves here. And now that you are here, you must make a choice. To stay and be the Bright King or to leave the Bright Lands. But once you leave, you may never return.”

    ‘What selfish old sheiks,’ thought the Prince. ‘To hoard all that treasure behind one door and to have an eternity of so much more locked away behind another. Did they all choose to leave the Bright Lands? Is that why they mourned their lives away in the Well of Grief? Fools!’ Without hesitation, the Prince declared that he would stay.


    At once the Queen called for her viziers and the chief amongst all the Cadi of the Bright Land. With the Viziers in attendance, the Cadi presiding and the revelers in the hall as witness, the Prince was there married and became the Bright King. For a month afterwards all the bells in the Bright Lands sang the joy that there was a new King.

    One night as the King and Queen lay exhausted among the silks and satins of their bed, the Queen produced from beneath the mattress two keys on a golden necklace. “These are the keys of the Bright Land,” she said draping the necklace around his neck. “They are to be worn only by the Bright King.”

    The King looked down at the keys. The larger, iron one looked to be a simple key for a padlock or shackle. The smaller, silver one glimmered in the lamplight. “What do they open,” he asked.

    “The iron key opens the treasury,” said the queen. “All the wealth of the Bright Land is yours to command. Spend or gift it as you will. The silver one is the key to Destiny. It opens a door within the treasury but you must never open it for if you choose to do so you will regret it and no depth of repentance shall ever avail you.”

    The next day, the King opened the treasury with the iron key and found a hoard of treasure such that a thousand empires might not gather in a thousand years. He found too, a simple door at the back of the treasury room with silver lock on it. This, he knew, was the door his wife had warned him about and though curious as to what might lay beyond, he turned from the door and gave it no more thought.

    His days were filled with sun and his nights with passion. With the heart of a lion he loved his Queen and ruled with her over the Bright Land. From the mountains to the sea and from blue heavens to the earth all the subjects of the Bright Land adored the King.

    It was not long before the bells of the Bright Land again sounded for another month. This time, to celebrate the birth of a daughter to the King and Queen. And oh how he doted over his daughter as no father ever had. His wife’s smiles and his daughter’s laughter sustained him. He felt there could be no man more loved than he and so he was content.

    Seven years passed though his face never showed it. Only the marking of time by the astrologers and the growing of his daughter into a young girl marked time. There would come a time, though, when she as a young woman would cease to age and it was accepted that she would eventually surpass her mother as a woman of astounding beauty.

    One day after holding court, he found himself in the treasury. Though seven years had passed and he had been generous to loyal subjects with gifts from the treasury, there seemed to be more money than ever before. But that was the way in the Bright Land; Blessing upon blessing and good fortune in abundance. Sorrow was as foreign to the Bright Land as rain in the deep desert.

    While he stood counting his greatest fortunes, that of his wife and child, he remembered the door. No sooner had he thought of the door than he turned to leave there it was, though he was certain it had not been there moments before. For seven years he had given it no thought but seeing it once again, his mind began to wonder what lay beyond.

    He took the small silver key from his necklace and remembered his wife telling him that he would regret using the key to Destiny and opening the door. But the old sheik had told him the same thing about the iron door in the Wailing Palace. Had he not opened the door he would never have come to the Bright Land. He would not be King. He would not be ageless or have a loving family. He placed the key back on the necklace and left the treasury but speculated how many more wonders and treasures might wait beyond this door.

    The thought of what lay beyond that door began to consume him and he started spending more time in the treasury. The queen so loved her husband that she knew something was wrong and she was certain that the door occupied the King’s thoughts. She would remind him with gentle words that opening the door would only lead to regret. She told him also that he was spending so much time in the treasury that their daughter missed the games of hide and seek he would play with her in the royal gardens and the stories he would tell about the lands from which the king had come.

    But the King did not hear the Queen’s words or the words of the daughter he had once been so devoted to. Only what lay beyond the door filled his mind so he spent most of his days in the treasury. No matter where in the treasury he was, as soon as he thought of the door, it appeared on the wall behind him. “It taunts me,” he said to himself. “My destiny is beyond that door. As more wonderful than the Wailing Palace is the Bright Land, how much more wonderful than the Bright Land is whatever lies beyond this door?”

    He took the key from his necklace and opened the door. On the other side, he found himself atop the highest tower of the citadel. The King Fisher, perched on the battlements, turned his head to the King. Vengeful eyes set upon the man and the King Fisher screeched in a voice that was heard across the all off the Bright Lands, “No welcome for the ungrateful heart!”

    The King turned to flee but the giant bird snatched him up in one of its taloned feet and took to the sky. The King Fisher tore at the man’s clothes with claw and beak, casting away the shreds of silks and satin to twist like brightly colored ribbons in the wind. The man struggled but the more he did, the more claw and beak tore at flesh as well as clothes. Bloody and naked, the man hung limp and exhausted.

    King Fisher flew over the rolling hills and the golden fields. He flew over the endless sea and for five days through storms with rain that stabbed into flesh like flying glass and thunder so loud it bruised the brain to hear it.

    On the sixth day the King Fisher flew from the storms and dropped the man unceremoniously onto the same beach from which it had first plucked him seven years before.

    The man pushed himself up to his knees and rasied his eyes to the King Fisher flying away. “Take me back,” he demanded. “I command it!”

    “You command nothing,” called back the King Fisher. “And never again shall you.”

    Far beyond the sea’s unknown horizon lay the Bright Land and the man wept. Not for the loss of a crown or the loss of a thousand empires worth of treasure, but for the loss of wife and child whom he loved. “Please,” he begged. “Take me back!” But only the calls of gulls, like mocking laughter was the reply.

    The robes he left on the beach so many years before still hung from the crooked palm tree but they had grown faded and torn. Having nothing else to dress himself in, the Prince put on the now ragged clothes. He found the hallway through which he had come but did not descend into the darkness. Instead he began gathering fronds and such things with which to make a simple shelter and there slept the night on the beach.

    The next day he went out looking for food and managed to scrounge a meager meal of fruits and berries. When he returned, he found his small lean-to destroyed. For three days this happened. On the fourth day, he decided to not look for food and bear the growling hunger so he might discover what was destroying his shelters. He hid himself among the trees and waited. It was not long before a shadow passed overhead and down swooped the King Fisher. With but a few flaps of its huge wings, the giant osprey scattered the lean-to like chaff to the wind.

    “Why,” shouted the man, emerging from the shadows. “Why do you destroy what I build?”

    “It is no more than you have done to yourself, son of man. Go back through the iron door and never again set eye or foot upon the Bright Lands.” With that, the King Fisher flew off.

    Two months passed in this manner. No matter how well the Prince hid his shelter, the King Fisher found it and destroyed it. If he managed to find extra food, the King Fisher would find and destroy it as well. The Prince made a spear out of a strong birch limb to use for fishing. King Fisher snatched it away, broke it and then threw it into the sea.

    “Have I not suffered enough,” asked the Prince. “I hear my wife’s loving whispers in the hiss of surf on the shore. I feel in each breeze the soft caress of my little girl’s hand on my cheek. I remember my daughter laughing, wide-eyed with wonder whenever I told her about the djiin and efreet that lived in the land beyond the iron door. She could not believe such evil things exist for there is nothing like demons here.” The Prince wept unashamed before the King Fisher and fell to his knees. “I beg you take me back. The sorrow in my heart for what I have done would drown the sun. I wish only to return to my family.”

    “You have no family,” said the bird. It was the first time in two months that King Fisher had spoken to the Prince.
    “I am the Bright King.”

    “No longer. The Bright Queen warned you. You used the key. You chose this destiny. You proved you are not changed.”

    “But I have repented!”

    “The Bright Queen has dissolved all bonds of marriage and family. You have no wife or daughter. You are no more than you were when you first stepped on these shores. A stranger who does not belong here. Unworthy.”

    “But if I am unworthy…”

    “I should kill and eat you,” finished the King Fisher. “That is the way. But I see that there is the true pain of loss in your heart. That is why I have only destroyed those things you have made. I thought it would force you back through the iron door. But that is at an end. I will no longer return. Tomorrow the Red Loreleis will arrive with the rising sun and they will not be as generous as I.” With that, the King Fisher took to the air.

    The Prince determined that he would stay. If the King Fisher could not be persuaded that he was truly sorry, per haps the Lorelei’s could. The next morning he spotted the red sail and waited on the beach. When the ship came closer, he saw the women rushing about on deck to make ready the captain’s gig. The captain and a dozen crew piled into the boat and rowed to shore. As they came closer, he saw blood smeared like savage war paint on the women’s faces.

    “There,” called the captain pointing to him. “The ungrateful heart!”

    Two of the crew stood and leveled bows at the Prince. Before he could speak, bowstrings twanged and black shafts hissed by his head. The prince ran into the trees. Arrows ripped through the foliage all around him.

    Steel blades flashing in her hands, the captain leaped from the gig and charged after him. “You cannot hide, male! We will have your heart today!”

    The Lorelei’s plunged into the woods after the Prince, chasing him like wolves harrying their prey. All about him they shouted and taunted the man with their laughing, she-demon voices. He saw in quick flashes through the trees their dark skin at his left and right as they kept pace, herding him in smaller and smaller circles. He ran blindly, his heart near bursting. That heart the captain kept promising with banshee screams to carve from his chest.

    Out of breath and his heart beating against the inside of his chest, he found himself back on the beach near the entrance to the dark hallway. With the women rushing in, their angry, bloody faces more devil than human, he threw himself into the hall and fell immediately into the well of grief. Behind him the iron door slammed shut.

    He pulled and heaved on the door. He hammered and kicked at it. He exhausted himself, desperate to open the passage back to the Bright Land but the door would not open. Eventually the prince collapsed into inconsolable weeping at his loss.

    His wife. His child. An ageless summer kingdom of fortune and happiness. All forever locked behind the iron door. The warning of the Bright Queen echoed through his thoughts. “No depth of repentance shall ever avail you.”

    Such was his pain that the treasure left him by the sheiks offered no comfort. The Wailing Palace with its mirrored walls and softly gurgling fountains offered no solace. Everywhere he looked he saw reminders of the Bright Land, his wife and his daughter and his heart would drown in sorrow. He spent his days in the well of grief, lamenting his choices. He had no desire for food or drink or companions other than his own unhappiness and he died in the well of grief, alone and with no one to bury him or sing his funeral songs.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  8. #28

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    --The Hakawati explains why hawks kill chickens--

    There was once a lovely young hen who lived with her parents. They were so poor they did not have a coop or a roost, just a little hole they had scratched out under a large rock. And though it was nothing to speak of, it was to them a home and they were happy in it.

    One day a hawk was gliding in lazy circles high in the air and looking for a meal. If a hawk spots a mouse or a rabbit it is only by the good graces of the hawk that it is not made a meal, for a hawk may dive from sky to ground faster than his own shadow can follow and snatch up dinner before the victim even knows it is about to die. Nothing may escape the hawk’s sight, no matter how small it is or how high the hawk might fly so it is not surprising that the hawk spotted the pretty young hen picking at grains and pebbles outside her parents’ house.

    She was the most beautiful thing he had ever set his eyes upon and he determined that he would have her as a wife. Collapsing his wings tight to his body, the hawk dove down and was swooping low to the ground in a few blinks of the eye. Spreading his wings to check his flight, the hawk alighted close to the hen and perched atop the rock that served as the roof of the hen’s house. Hawks, being the regal birds they are, avoid walking on the ground since that is where their food comes from.

    The hawk’s keen eyes found the hen to be even more lovely up close and he greeted her with a wink and a skree. Hawks never have lacked confidence in accomplishing anything they set their minds to do. The hawk determined that the hen would be his and so spoke as if it their marriage was determined by fate. “Little hen,” he said, “I will have you as a wife as sure as summer follows spring and death follows life.”

    Never had the hen thought such a handsome bird would want a simple hen like her for a wife. Flattered and taken by the hawks piercing eyes and confident manner in which the hawk carried himself, the pretty little hen said that she would very much like to be his wife, but her parents had to agree.

    The hen’s parents readily agreed to the marriage for they were poor and it would do very well to have a son-in-law that was a respected prince of the sky. A dowry was agreed upon that consisted mostly of cracked corn. The hawk paid the dowry and took the hen to his home.

    Not long after this a young cock came to the house of the hen’s parents. He had been in love with the hen ever since his spurs grew and wanted to court her and make the hen his wife. Upon hearing that the hen was the wife of the hawk, the cock determined to make the hen return and be his wife instead. As confident as is the hawk, the cock is just as headstrong. Perhaps even more.

    He arrived at the hawk’s house at dawn the next day. He puffed up his chest, flapped his wings a few times and crowed in his best voice for the young hen to come out and go with him. The pretty little hen, entranced by the cock’s stature and his piercing voice went outside and in a short time was following the strutting cock back to her parent’s house.

    The hawk, hovering in the sky beyond the perception of any normal eye, saw all that happened. His blood became angry and he considered diving down and killing the cock right there. But he considered that doing so would cheapen his honor. Why kill over a hen with a heart so undevoted that she would go off with a strutting cock at his slightest crow? Instead, he made up his mind to seek justice from one of the bird kings.

    Hawk flew east into the night until he saw the first rays of morning light rising over the horizon. Only in those rays, he knew, could he find the Falcon of the Eastern Dawn. He approached the bird king, told his story and asked the King to right the wrong that had been committed against him.

    The Falcon of the Eastern Dawn summoned the hen’s parents and told them that since their daughter had left hawk for cock, they must repay the dowry which is the custom in matters such as this. But the hen’s parents had already eaten the cracked corn and were so poor that they could not possibly repay it.

    The Falcon of the Eastern Dawn considered the situation then pronounced his judgement. “Hen will stay with cock. From this day until eternity ends, hawk may kill and eat any of cock’s children anywhere and at any time it suits him to do so and I shall not hear the complaints of cock or his kind with regards to this.”

    Now, whenever a hawk sees a chicken he swoops down and carries it off as partial payment of his lost dowry.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  9. #29

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    --The Hakawati tells the story of the Physician and his Uncle--


    Once, there lived near Tel Haliim, a poor man. In fact, many poor men lived there and still do. This particular man, however, had a wife and thirteen children. He labored day and night just to earn enough food to barely keep his family from starvation. When his fourteenth child was born, the man grew worried. They hardly had enough food as it was. Another mouth would only make meals smaller, if they had meals at all. He determined that the only way to preserve his family was to give away the child so he took the new born child to the gates of Tel Haliim, intending to pass the child to someone leaving the city.

    He stood by the gate asking those people that looked like travelers or merchants if they would take and care for his boy. The first person to show interest was a tall man with many rings on his fingers. He and the five other men were leaving for Duhrbastis. But, they all wore the sigil of Baal which marked them as priests and acolytes of the bull headed demon. The poor man knew that Baal required the sacrifice of newborns by fire. While wishing to be rid of the baby, he had no desire to see it thrown into a pot-bellied brass brazier.

    The next person interested in the baby was a rich woman on a palanquin born by eight naked male slaves. Each slave had gelding scars and sported a pierced nipple from which hung a light chain that was attached to the palanquin. He refused the woman as well, feeling she would only consign the boy to a life of slavery.

    Shortly after the woman left, a man approached the poor fellow and said, “I will take the child.”

    The poor man turned to the stranger who seemed to be looking past the poor man at something in the distance. “And who are you,” asked the poor man.

    “A sheik. A nomad. A wandering spirit,” said the stranger with a shrug., “From the tribe of Ashem.”

    The stranger certainly looked like a desert nomad with the loose clothing draping his body and a long keffiyeh opened and hanging about his neck. “The lands of Ashem are far to the east. What are you doing in Tel Haliim?”

    “I wander the world, going wherever my mind takes me.”

    “Then you are a scholar?”

    “Of sorts,” said the nomad. “I promise you that I will be as an uncle to the boy, I shall instruct the child and he will one day become a physician surpassing the skills of any other. He shall have wealth and respect. But the price of this is that you may never see him again or benefit from any of his acts or good fortune.”

    The poor man knew he could not support a fourteenth child so he agreed and handed over the baby to the nomad. Had he known the true nature of the nomad, the poor man might have reconsidered for the nomad with the eyes staring into the distance was really one of the Magi.

    It is true that Set’s price for their immortality is that the Magi may never leave the Black Necropolis. However, Magi are such powerful beings that their dreams may manifest in the living world. That is exactly what the nomad was, the physical embodiment of a Magi dreaming about his past life as a mortal.

    That night the dream Magi summoned from death the soul of a murder victim. He pricked the baby’s palm and gave the tortured spirit a taste of the blood. “Go,” he commanded the vengeful ghost. “Go to Tel Haliim and kill all that share the blood. The father. The mother. The siblings. ” Thus did the Magi ensure that the poor man would keep to his part of the bargain and never benefit from the boy’s eventual wealth or fame.

    The dream Magi took the child to the summer Oasis of the Ashem. There, he found a childless couple and explained that the child’s family was dead and that he was the child’s uncle but could not care for the child. He gave them the baby to raise saying, “Raise this child in the way of Ashem and when he is of age, I shall return for him. I swear by Set that you shall want for nothing so long as he is raised in the proper way. I will visit from time to time and if I ever suspect you are shirking the responsibilities I entrust to you, I will call down the curse of the Magi upon you.”

    The boy grew up to be a strong young man of Ashem who’s handsome face had caught the eye of the Pasha’s youngest daughter. Throughout their youth the two were constant companions. Though they spoke about one day being married, they knew it would never be for the young man was nobody important and his foster parents could not afford the dowry for a Pasha’s daughter.

    One day the Magi arrived, saying it was time for the young man to accompany him. The young man’s foster parents wept for they loved the young man as their own son but had to keep the promise. The dreamwalking Magi went so far into the deep desert with the young man that they walked through places only the sun and moon had ever seen.

    The Magi led the young man to the ruins of a city swallowed by the desert. Only the tops of crumbling columns poked above the sand. There, he tuned to the young man and gave him a small potion vial. “I will now give you your Uncle’s gift,” said the Magi, “and make you the most famous physician in current memory. Whenever you are summoned to attend the sick, I shall appear only to your eyes. If I stand at the person’s feet, declare their imminent recovery and give them a few drops of that potion. They will then soon be well. However, if I stand at their head, their soul belongs to me and you must pronounce their approaching death. Take care never to oppose my will and I will never have need to punish you for it.”

    In a short time, the young man became a physician of great renown. Word spread that he could tell whether or not a person would recover just by looking at them . People came from far and near to hear his diagnosis and they gave him whatever he asked. His fortune grew immense. He realized he had more than enough to afford the dowry for the Pasha’s daughter and so set off to ask the Pasha if he might have his daughter as a wife.

    When the physician arrived at the Pasha’s tent, there was a great wailing of women from inside. The Pasha’s youngest daughter came to him with tears in her eyes, begging him, “Please, my father has fallen ill. You must attend him.”

    The Pasha lay close to death, surrounded by his wives. When the Physician approached he saw his Uncle standing at the Pasha’s head and knew there was no hope for the man. The tears of the Pasha’s daughter tore at the Physician’s heart. He could not bear to hear her weep or to deepen her sorrow by proclaiming there was no hope for the Pasha.

    “Quickly,” ordered the Physician. “if you wish him to live, turn him about.” The women did this so the Magi now stood at the feet of the Pasha. Before the Magi could move back to the man’s head, the Physician announced, “The Pasha will live,” and gave the Pasha a few drops of the potion.

    The Magi glared at the Physician but said nothing and soon faded from the Physician’s sight.

    So grateful was the Pasha to have been brought back from the brink of death that he readily allowed the marriage of his young daughter to the physician. The Physician stayed at the pasha’s tent while his new wife made ready to leave her father’s household and build a new one with her husband. The day before they were to leave, a visitor arrived and asked for the Physician. The Physician’s wife brought the visitor to her husband.

    “Husband,” she said. “Your uncle has come to pay his repects.”

    The Physician sat with his Uncle in the tent’s shiqq. The Physician’s wife brought coffee and sweet honey cakes for the men and as she was leaving, the Magi reached out to her and touched her arm. “My nephew has done well to find such a lovely young wife,” said the Magi.

    Despite the kind compliment, the gentle hand on her arm filled her with dread. It felt cold as if it fed on the warmth of her life and hungered for her mortal soul. “Thank you,” she said and hurried away.

    Once the Physician’s wife left, the Magi turned his face to the Physician. The Magi’s face drew gaunt and the skin around his eyes became red as sores. The Physician knew he was glimpsing a truer face of his uncle than the rest of the world saw. “I will forgive you this one time for disobeying my will. Betray me again and there will be consequences which your mind cannot begin to fathom.”

    The next morning, the Physician woke to the agonized moans of his wife. A rash covered her arm and she twisted about in feverish delirium. The Physician wept day and night until his eyes were blinded by stinging tears. He refused to see his wife for fear that his uncle would appear at her head and he would have to watch her die. But no other physician could cure the strange malady and at last he was forced to diagnose her.

    When he gazed at her, he saw his uncle standing at her head and his heart broke. This was his punishment, he knew, for betraying his uncle and curing the pasha but he could not bring himself to pronounce his wife’s death. Instead he turned her about so his uncle stood at her feet and gave her some of the potion. The fever retreated and life flowed back into her body.

    When the Magi saw that he was a second time betrayed, he stepped into the living world and took hold of the Physician. In the blink of a dreaming eye, the Physician found himself in a vaulted crypt where thousands and thousands of candles flickered around a corpse on a stone slab. Every moment some candles went out and others came to life so that the little fires seemed to dance and hop about.

    The corpse woke and sat up. Its bones cracked like old wood and the desiccated skin crumbled like dry rotted paper falling into dust. The physician recognized his uncle’s features in the twisted death face with its lips curled back over black gums and crooked teeth.

    The physician looked about. Things moved along the vaulted ceiling. They crawled and slid against and through one another, human in shape only. “What is this place?”

    “Behold,” said the corpse with a voice like sand whispering over rocks. “The Black Necropolis and the tomb of souls.”

    The Physician began backing away from the Magi. “But no living man save the Motwihamreed may walk the Black Necropolis and survive.” Corpse things reached from the wall. Crooked, skeletal fingers sank into the physician’s flesh and drew him against the wall of unliving cadavers from which the crypt was built.

    The Magi lifted one of the candles and looked at it with eyes dry as the sand. “These are the soul candles of man. When a child is born a candle lights. When a candle is burned out, so is a life. This one belongs to your wife.”

    The magi pinched out the candle flame and breathed in the smoke. The Physician’s heart split seeing in the wisp of smoke the face of his wife. The Magi tossed the candle away with as little thought as he gave to killing the Physician’s wife and inhaling her soul. “And this one is yours,” said the immortal lich lord taking up another candle.

    “Snuff it out,” begged the Physician. “There is nothing left for me.”

    “There is,” said the Magi. “You must face the consequences of defying me.” The Magi exhaled onto the flame the smoke wisp souls of the Physician’s wife, his parents and siblings. “Sixteen souls. Sixteen lifetimes.”

    The Magi lay back on the stone slab and the shadow gouls clinging to the ceiling began crawling down the walls, hunger in their eyes. For sixteen lifetimes the Physician’s candle would continue to burn and for sixteen lifetimes the Physician’s flesh would renew and provide feast for the ghouls.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

  10. #30

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    --The Hakawati explains why the people of the Sef Ta valley allow their dead to rot and putrefy before burying them.--

    Many ruins may be found scattered about and between the mountains Dej-Sef and Dej-Ta. They are older than any memory and date from the time before the desert swallowed the Garden of Shem. Only the gods and the Magi remember when the garden once spread across the world and only they remember the true names of these cities that now stand in ruins, smothered by the desert. Today we know them only as the Ghosts of Sef Ta, or the Bones of Yog.

    In the ancient past when the Garden of Shem still lived, the valley between Dej-Sef and Dej-Ta was taken up with yam farms from one end to the other. These farms were divided equally between seven emirs who rule the seven cities in the valley. No one ever left the valley for there was no need to. Game was plentiful. Rain fell in gentle showers to feed the land. And of course there were the yams. Everyone prospered and lived happy lives. Despite how perfect life seemed in the valley, no one from outside the valley would ever enter it because those that did rarely returned and when they did return they told stories of how the people in the Sef Ta valley celebrated their harvest.

    At the end of each year, when it was time to harvest the yams, the king ordered a huge feast to be held. People from the seven towns gathered at the King’s palace in the very center of the valley and as a present for the king, each town brought one hundred bushels of yams for the feast. But the yams had to be blessed before they could be eaten or else they would cause great pain to the insides of those eating them. Men from all the towns competed in feats of strength and combat to determine who would have the honor of sanctifying the yams.

    The people would divide the yams into fifty portions and pile them around fifty tall poles. Slaves, mostly strangers who had wandered into the valley, would then be bound upside down to thick poles so that their head was just above the pile of yams. While drums beat and people danced around the piles, the man who was chosen as the strongest would go to each slave and with a single stoke of a scimitar, lop off their heads. Blood gushing from the neck stumps of the decapitated slaves poured over the yams and in this manner they were sanctified and made them edible.

    Once the all the blood drained from the bodies, fires were lit and the dead bodies were singed in order to burn all the hair off. The people gathered broad leaves and placed them over smoldering coals in deep cooking pits then placed the bodies, which had been butchered, on the leaves to roast. The people skinned the yams, seasoned them with oils and threw them over the cut-up bodies to roast along with the meat for a day and a night. The king then proclaimed the start of the feast and the people sang and danced for three days during which all the meat and yams were eaten by the people of the valley.

    The king and his emirs took the heads as their share and once they finished eating them, seven skulls were given to each emir and the last one was placed on a stone shrine along with some uncooked yams. This, of course, was to ensure a good harvest the following season. Though these people ate the dead at the harvest feast, they did not eat human flesh at any other time.

    Some think the people of the Sef Ta valley were the first worshippers of Yog. Some think they worshipped a forgotten demon or god that is now buried in the sands waiting to be uncovered. Whatever the reason, this ritual had gone on for longer than anyone could remember and every year the people of the valley looked forward to the yam feast.

    As time went on people began noticing that the graves of those who had been buried were sometimes opened and the bodies gone. This caused great concern. The people did not like the idea of their dead relations being taken away, or worse, that they were rising from the dead to exact revenge for some wrong committed against them in life. The people, frightened, went to the king who immediately ordered each city to set a watch on their new graves.
    It was not long that one of the city watches spied seven men sneak into the town’s graveyard. The men dug up one of the newly dead and carried off the cadaver. The watch followed the men to a cave where the corpse thieves began butchering the body and preparing cook fires. Large piles of bones and skulls littered the cave and upon seeing all of this the watch fell upon the seven men and beat them unconscious.

    The seven men were then securely bound and brought before the king who called together the seven emirs to discuss the situation. The seven grave robbers came from each of the seven towns which caused the emirs to accuse each other of allowing cannibals and grave breakers to live in their towns. Each emir did not recognize that a cannibal had been living in their own town. They saw only that the cannibals from six other towns were stealing and eating the dead. Soon, the emirs were threatening to attack and raze each other’s towns as punishment.

    The king then stood and silenced all the bickering. “There can be no peace,” said the king, “but I will not see the seven cities destroy one another. To preserve the peace, each city must leave the valley and form new towns far away from one another. I will give each of you seven emirs one of the seven corpse eaters. Once you have left the valley and found a new place for your towns, sacrifice your man there build your cities anew.”

    The people did as the king ordered and when they rebuilt their towns around the mountains, they rebuilt them exactly same as they had been in the valley. That is why the ruins in the shadows of Dej-Sef and Dej-Ta seem to have twins within the valley. Only the king’s palace remained in the valley. But this soon fell into disrepair for once the towns had been rebiuilt, they were so far away that no one would visit the palace. It and the king were soon forgotten.

    The granite stella rising from the sand in the Sef-Ta valley is the topmost spire of that ancient palace. In the spring and winter when sun and moon share the sky in equal hours, the shadow of Dej-Sef falls on the stella at sunrise and the shadow of Dej-Ta falls on it at sunset. At these times, the stella glows and a deep growl rumbles up from deep within the earth.

    After finding new settlements, the towns would have nothing to do with one another so each town held its own yam feast. The people continued to kill and eat slaves at the feast. However, to discourage any cannibals, the people kept the bodies of their relations and friends above ground until they had become rotten.

    This is why, even at the present time, the people that live in the shadows of Dej-Sef and Dej-Ta keep their dead family members in their own houses until the corpse becomes putrid and is falling apart.
    -There are things in the deep desert that could not be imagined even in the nightmares of a thousand madmen.-

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